Veronica Wilde grew up accustomed to being stared at. If her steel gray eyes and shocking mane of red hair were not enough, her ability to read the thoughts of people she came in contact with unnerved strangers and acquaintances alike. When the county's social welfare department got involved, the eleven-year-old girl tested out beyond genius level and nearly put the test administrator into a mental hospital.

Her life-long friend, Billy Swift Fox, was equally astonishing—materializing out of thin air and departing by the same method. Veronica's mother, herself adept at magic, was not perturbed by the children, but her father, who didn't even believe in magic found them difficult to deal with.

But Barbara Wilde, her mother, carried a depressing secret within her, not knowing how to explain to her husband, the only man she had ever loved, what was likely to happen to the daughter he adored. Only Barbara knew that Veronica, by a force much greater than family love and attachment, would be compelled to enter the Cave of the Wind. Furthermore, Barbara had the premonition that Veronica's trials in the cave would far surpass anything she herself had faced when she entered the cave as a young girl.